


Winterbound

by havocthecat



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: 4th Edition, D&D, Eladrin, Gen, Winter, Winterkin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-14
Updated: 2011-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havocthecat/pseuds/havocthecat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alisane Telemnar has been on the run. That's why she has so many adventures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winterbound

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [as a thread on this prompt post on Dreamwidth](http://havocthecat.dreamwidth.org/1094072.html?thread=13377720#cmt13377720).

_The night is darkening round me,_  
The wild winds coldly blow;  
But a tyrant spell has bound me  
And I cannot, cannot go. 

_The giant trees are bending_  
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.  
And the storm is fast descending,  
And yet I cannot go. 

_Clouds beyond clouds above me,_  
Wastes beyond wastes below;  
But nothing dear can move me;  
I will not, cannot go.  
\--Spellbound, by Emily Brontë 

They say the winters on this plane are cold. They say that the blizzards at the keep, the one near the borders of old Arkhosia, can leave you waist high in snow and are the worst you'll find in this entire world. The nights are long and the days are short, and the whole of the countryside sits inside or underground, in front of their fires, and hopes that spring will come soon.

I was born in the Vale of the Long Night, in the deepest nights of a neverending winter, and my youth was spent without the touch of sunlight on my face. I grew to adulthood as part of the Pale Prince's court, watching them dance around each other in glittering halls traced with frost and the cold light of the moon and stars to guide their way. 

It's not hard to teach yourself to pick a lock in the cold if you have the patience of an Eladrin. The frost stops numbing your fingers once you learn to embrace the cold and hoard the scraps of warmth within yourself. I learned to trace the pathways without light to guide me. I taught myself to disarm traps and then to re-arm them. Would you want the Lord of the Long Night discovering you'd entered the Fortress of Frozen Tears without his knowledge? Would you want to get caught in one of his traps?

Two women, both Eladrin more pale and gaunt than I've seen before or since, haunt the fortress like wraiths, always crying, always looking for something. When I was a child, I thought that if I could find it and give it to them, they would lie down and sleep, freezing in ice like the rest of the statues in the fortress. I never did find out what they wanted, no matter how many books I read nor how many scraps of frost-covered, ancient parchment I unearthed. 

It's still crystal clear, the moment I realized I couldn't stay. I couldn't live in the Vale of the Long Night, not knowing what the Pale Prince had done. They all knew, they must have; I didn't know if they were all a part of it. I just knew that I couldn't be. Not after that night. 

He'd deigned to visit the rest of the winter fey, and the court was bargaining for a piece of his power before we went to visit the Summer Court. I snuck away, changed out of my gown into breeches, and roamed the halls of the Fortress of Frozen Tears without hearing anything but the sound of my own breath. 

The Prince of Frost's own chambers were lined with blocks of ice carved out of the permafrost and filled with statues of people of all kinds - Dragonborn, Humans, Dwarves, along with all the other species you can find in the Feywild, the Shadowdark, and this mortal plane that you live in with the Elves. 

The traps were easy to dismantle when you'd spent two decades studying them. The locks were cold enough to pull off skin, if you weren't used to them. Gloves kept you from feeling the intricacies of the metal. I was almost through. 

There were eyes on my back. Someone was watching me. I thought it was the Prince of Frost. I thought he'd come back early, slipping quiet and unseen into his chambers. I stood, turning an inch at a time, sure that I would meet his eyes. 

My breath hung in the air, white fog and condensation, and all I could see through it was a blue-scaled Dragonborn with two swords strapped to his back and lightning in his eyes. 

I stared at him. He blinked.

I ran. 

I could avoid the traps; I'd learned by then never to stop moving. I'd learned to hide by darting through the shadows. I teleported past them and moved through the night and the cold and the dark. I didn't need more than the faint light of the crescent moon to see.

I ran all the way through the Feywild. I spent a night or two moving through the lands of the Gloaming Fey; I skirted the borders of Mithrendain, and then ended up in Astrazalian. There were Fomorians laying siege to the city, but I waited until night and then hid in the shadows. It took me almost until dawn, but my movements were slow. Careful. 

No one wanted to get caught by Fomorians, but they weren't as frightening as the Pale Prince's anger. I'd spent years slipping through that fortress, and and all of that time, I hadn't been caught.

Once a part of Astrazalian, I spent hours in the Temple of the Lady. I had no need of Corellon; he was the sun. It took me months get used to daylight. Sehanine is the lady of the moon, and it's the moon's light and her shadows which keep me safe and unseen. 

When Astrazalian became a part of the mortal world for half the year, I hired on as a caravan guard and left the Feywild - and the Winter Court - behind forever.

Or so I thought.

During my meditations, I can feel my breath chilling in my lungs, and I can feel the cold stealing through my limbs. It doesn't slow me. The Vale of the Long Night is a part of me, and I think I carry a bit of winter with me wherever I go.

So long as the Pale Prince doesn't find me and demand an explanation, I'll be fine. I hope. That's why I keep moving. 

\--end--


End file.
